LISTMANIA: A TOP 10 LIST BY TODD MANNING

 LISTMANIA 2018  6 Responses »
Dec 202018
 

 

(Here’s a Top 10 list for the year by NCS contributor Todd Manning.)

2018, a year of escalating violence, the collapse of logic, and the furthering fall of because. Can we even remember what happened from one week to the next? Narratives battle for your attention like two bikers stabbing each other with rusty screwdrivers. Is this the era Extreme Metal has always sought to narrate? I don’t know, but to paraphrase the Chinese proverb, we are cursed to live in interesting times. Here are the albums that made up my personal soundtrack. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ULVDALIR — “MUSIC OF COLD SPHERES”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Dec 202018
 

 

With only 11 days left in the old year we’re now being hit by an onslaught of advance tracks from albums destined for release early in the new one. There’s always a risk that excellent records released at the end of the year will be overlooked, and perhaps an equal risk that albums released in the early days of 2019 may be forgotten when year-end lists are assembled next December. However, I’m betting that the new one by the Russian black metal band Ulvdalir, which is set for release by Iron Bonehead Productions on January 25th, won’t be forgotten — it’s just too damned magnificent!

This new full-length, …of Death Eternal, is Ulvdalir‘s fourth album, and their first in eight years. The first sign of its startling extravagance was a song named “Swords of Belial” that surfaced last month, and now we present a second sign, in the form of “Music of Cold Spheres“. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: PITCHFORK’S LIST OF “THE BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2018”

 LISTMANIA 2018  9 Responses »
Dec 202018
 

 

The last time our year-end LISTMANIA series included a “Best Metal” list by Pitchfork was in 2015. I can’t remember why I didn’t include their list in the following two years, but most likely because I just didn’t notice it. This year, my comrade DGR alerted me to the publication of their list of “The Best Metal Albums of 2018“, and so here we are.

Pitchfork obviously qualifies for the part of our series devoted to re-publishing lists by “big platform” cross-genre music sites. Founded in 1995 by recent high school graduate Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis, it has been based in Chicago since 1999 and has been owned by the Conde Nast conglomerate since 2015. From its humble beginnings, it now boasts an audience of more than 7 million monthly unique visitors.

It’s fair to say that most of those visitors aren’t metalheads. The site’s reputation historically was closely associated with independent underground music, and in the last 10 years their Album of the Year award has gone to Kendrick Lamar three times, as well as other hip-hop artists. This year it went to Japanese-American artist Mitski. But, as you see, Pitchfork also publishes a list of the year’s best metal. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: A YEAR-END LIST BY THEMADISRAELI

 LISTMANIA 2018  5 Responses »
Dec 192018
 

 

(NCS writer TheMadIsraeli turns in the following year-end list, consisting of 20 recommended albums.)

I made it a goal to get back to my old writing output on this site in 2018 and it just… didn’t happen.  For good reason mind you, but I do feel somewhat guilty that I wasn’t more active on NCS this year, especially with the way Islander, Andy, and DGR ground the fuck out of their writing this year. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been involved in the back door of the site in ways, and I’ve definitely kept up with music this year pretty competently.

And so, I’m gonna share my top 20 of the year, and the just kind of ramble about my reflections on the music this year. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DEFORMATORY — “MYIASIS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 192018
 

 

Today — December 19th — CDN Records will release Bilateral Carnage, a new 7″ vinyl split release by a pair of Canadian death metal bands, Ottawa-based Deformatory and Toronto’s Blood of Christ. Deformatory‘s brutal contribution to the split is a track called “Myiasis“, and today we present an unusual music video for the track to accompany the sonic assault.

The song is described as one that “unravels the psychosis of retribution” — dissecting “a victim’s penalty for betrayal in a sickening tale of prolonged suffering”, and it provides a preview of Deformatory‘s direction on their next album, which we’re expecting at some point in 2019. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VETALA — “RETARDED NECRO DEMENTIAL HOLE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  6 Responses »
Dec 192018
 

 

“This album REALLY isn’t for you!” So states the PR material for the new album on the Harvest of Death label by the duo of unrepentant Portuguese extremists in Vetala. The wordsmith in question wasn’t referring to me in particular (at least I don’t think so), but to some broad swath of “critics” who might take offense at an album named Retarded Necro Demential Hole and whose utter depravity could be perceived as a way of taking a shit on good taste and “any and all conceptions of ‘black metal'”.

Of course, I took that as a dare. I mean, most of you know the range of extreme metal that typically forms my own bread and rancid butter. How could it possibly be too transgressive or disgusting for me to swallow? Continue reading »

REVOCATION / ARCHSPIRE / SOREPTION / RIVERS OF NIHIL: LIVE IN BIRMINGHAM 17/12/18

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 192018
 

 

(Andy Synn continues his campaign to make many of us jealous over the shows he’s getting to see in the UK, this time witnessing a duo of American tech stalwarts, a Canadian one, and a Swedish one, and documenting the event with video.)

Looking back over the last twelve months I can see that I’ve been lucky enough to attend a number of awesome shows, festivals, etc, this year, with the last couple of months in particular being an incredibly busy (not to mention fun) period, especially where frantic, fret-melting technicality is concerned.

Just in the last few weeks I’ve got the chance to catch Beyond Creation/Gorod prog out and Aborted/Cryptopsy blast faces, and two nights ago saw things get kicked up yet another notch with the fatal four-way of Revocation, Archspire, Soreption, and Rivers of Nihil at Mama Roux’s in Birmingham. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DER ROTE MILAN, NUSQUAMA, ONDFØDT, BLUE HUMMINGBIRD ON THE LEFT, OMEGAVORTEX

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

I wasn’t able to write a SHADES OF BLACK column for last Sunday due to feeling like hell. I felt somewhat better than hell yesterday, and decided to pull this together now rather than wait until next Sunday. I have more new music from the black realms that I’d like to recommend, and will try to fold them into a different kind of round-up later this week. What you’ll find below are songs from four albums slated for release early next year and a mid-2018 promo EP that I’ve just discovered.

DER ROTE MILAN

Der Rote Milan‘s 2016 debut album Aus der Asche was an intense blending of grim ferocity and melancholy beauty, a powerfully affecting sequence of songs that makes their new album also worth close attention. Entitled Moritat, it will be released by Unholy Conspiracy Deathwork on February 1st. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEATEN TO DEATH — “HAVREGUBBENS DOLK”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

When last we checked in with Norway’s Beaten To Death the year was 2015 and the band were on the brink of releasing their third album, Unplugged, which our reviewer Austin Weber called “the rarest kind of grind release” — “a record that’s memorable from start to finish”, with unusual vocals and melodic components that floated above the thrashing chaos and groovesome chugs in a way that made the music unusually atmospheric and gave it staying power.

Now these Oslo-based grind innovators are returning to the field of battle beatings with a new album named Agronomicon, which will be digitally released by Mas-Kina Recordings on Christmas Eve and on CD and LP come January 4th. The band have begun releasing something new on a daily basis leading up to the release, and today we bring you the latest offering, a track called “Havregubbens Dolk“. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): WAN — “GAMMAL ÄR ÄLDST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

If you are new to the sound of the Swedish black metal band WAN, you could make some good inferences about the nature of their music from the titles of their first three albums — Wolves of the North (2010), Enjoy the Filth (2013), and Wan Way To Hell (2017) — not to mention their 2015 split, Necroholic. And if those clues aren’t convincing enough, a list of influences that includes Bathory, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Darkthrone, Aura Noir, Nifelheim, Old, and Bestial Mockery should provide further guidance.

But there’s no need to engage in guessing games today, because we have new music from WAN to share with you that emblazons their brand like hot iron on the flesh, in a way that will appeal to the lust of their existing fans and provide a compelling introduction to new ones. What you’re about to hear is WAN’s new EP, Gammal är äldst (“Old is the oldest” in English), which is set for release by Carnal Records on December 21st. Continue reading »

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